Part 24 (1/2)

”Don't choke me,” I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the latter'sstaircases and tubelifts They always make me feel sick”

I adhtly to the hand of the Glittering Lady She, however, placed her other hand uponin a low voice:

”Did I not tell you to have no fear?”

Then I felt comforted, for somehow I knew that it was not her desire to harm and much less to destroy me Also ToainstThe only stoic of the party was Bickley I have no doubt that he was quite as frightened as ere, but rather than show it he would have died

”I presuan when suddenly and without shock, we arrived at the end of our journey How far we had fallen I ae from the awful speed at which we travelled, that it must have been several thousand feet, probably four or five

”Everything seee lift has stopped The odd thing is that I can't see anything of it There ought to be a shaft, but we see is,” said Bickley, ”that we can see at all Where the devil does the light coround?”

”I don't know,” answered Bastin, ”unless there is natural gas here, as I am told there is at a town called Medicine Hat in Canada”

”Natural gas be blowed,” said Bickley ”It is nified ten times”

So it was The whole place was filled with a soft radiance, equal to that of the sun at noon, but gentler and without heat

”Where does it come froht evasively ”It is the light of the Under-world which we kno to use The earth is full of light, which is not wonderful, is it, seeing that its heart is fire? Now look about you”

I looked and leant on her harder than ever, since amazement made me weak We were in some vast place whereof the roof seeht At least all that I could ht have been one of cloud For the rest, in every direction stretched vastness, illuht of which I have spoken, that is, probably for several miles But this vastness was not ereat city There were streets h these, I observed, were roofless, very fine houses, some of them, built of white stone or e of feet There, farther on, were e central enclosure one or two hundred acres in extent, which was filled with s that looked like palaces, or town-halls; and, in the midst of them all, a vast te the lack of necessity, its builders seemed to have adhered to the Over-world tradition, and had roofed their fane

And now came the terror All of this enormous city was dead Had it stood upon the moon it could not have been more dead None paced its streets; none looked from its -places None trafficked in its arnished, lighted, practically untouched by the hand of Time, here where no rains fell and no winds blew, it was yet a howling wilderness For ilderness is there to equal that which once has been the busy haunt ofthe buried cities of Central Asia, or of Anarajapura in Ceylon, or even amid the ruins of Salamis on the coast of Cyprus, answer the question But here was soe human haunt in the bowels of the earth utterly devoid of hus, and yet as perfect as on the day when these ceased to be

”I do not care for underground localities,” reely in that terrible silence, ”but it does sees should be wasted I suppose their inhabitants left them in search of fresh air”

”Why did they leave them?” I asked of Yva

”Because death took them,” she answered solemnly ”Even those who live a thousand years die at last, and if they have no children, with them dies the race”

”Then were you the last of your people?” I asked

”Inquire of h the

It led into a walled courtyard in the centre of which was a plain cupola of ate of soold This gate stood open Within it was the statue of a woman beautifully executed in white ure was draped as though to conceal the shape, and the face was stern and majestic rather than beautiful The eyes of the statue were cunningly e and lifelike appearance They stared upwards as though looking away from the earth and its concerns The arht hand was a cup of black marble, in the left a similar cup of white marble

Fro water, which two strealed at a distance of about three feet beneath the cups Then they fell into a h it h by their constant impact, and apparently vanished down soareedy and demonstrative fashi+on

”The Life-water?” I said, looking at our guide

She nodded and asked in her turn:

”What is the statue and what does it signify, Humphrey?”

I hesitated, but Bastin answered: